Natural History (13.8 billion years BC – 3.3 million BC)

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Europe's most complete stegosaurian skull unearthed in Teruel, Spain
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-europe-st ... eruel.html
by Pensoft Publishers

Paleontologists from the Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis have published new research in the journal Vertebrate Zoology. The article describes a partial stegosaurian skull discovered in the municipality of Riodeva (Teruel, Spain) and proposes a new hypothesis about the evolutionary history of plated dinosaurs.

Stegosaurs were dinosaurs mainly characterized by being plant-eaters, moving on all fours, and displaying two rows of plates and/or spines from the neck to the end of the tail.

The specimen studied was recovered during the paleontological excavations led by the Fundación Dinópolis at the "Están de Colón" fossil site, located in sediments of the Villar del Arzobispo Formation, dating to the Late Jurassic epoch (around 150 million years ago). It is the best-preserved stegosaurian skull ever found in Europe and has been identified as belonging to the species Dacentrurus armatus.

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Nearly complete dinosaur skull reveals a new sauropod species from East Asia
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-dinosaur- ... ecies.html
by Justin Jackson, Phys.org

A team led by China University of Geosciences has described a new species of sauropod, Jinchuanloong niedu, from a partial skeleton and nearly complete skull found in northwestern China, adding a rare non-neosauropod eusauropod to the Middle Jurassic record of East Asia.

Eusauropods are the clade that includes nearly all long-necked dinosaurs beyond the earliest forms. They became the only surviving sauropod lineage after a global extinction in the late Early Jurassic.

Many later branching forms belong to Neosauropoda, such as the iconic giants Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus. Several non-neosauropod eusauropods also persisted through the Middle Jurassic, dominating faunas in that interval.

Fossils preserving complete skulls remain rare among non-neosauropod eusauropods, leaving major gaps in the Middle Jurassic fossil record.

In the study, "A new eusauropod (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha) from the Middle Jurassic of Gansu, China," published in Scientific Reports, researchers describe the anatomy and evolutionary placement of a previously unknown specimen.

Recovered from the lower part of the Xinhe Formation in Jinchuan District, Gansu Province, the Jinchuanloong niedu holotype consists of a nearly complete skull with mandible, five articulated cervical vertebrae, and 29 articulated caudal vertebrae. Site sedimentary beds date to the late Bathonian of the Middle Jurassic, around 165 to 168 million years ago.

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Oldest physical evidence of butterflies or moths discovered in 236-million-year-old poop
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-oldest-ph ... moths.html
by Bob Yirka, Phys.org

A team of paleontologists affiliated with several institutions in Argentina, working with a colleague from the U.K., has discovered evidence of scales from lepidopterans in dung samples recovered from a dig site in Talampaya National Park, Argentina. In their paper published in the Journal of South American Earth Sciences, the group describes how they found the scales in the dung samples and what the find means for scientists who study butterflies and moths.

In 2011, digging began at a site in Talampaya National Park. As the work unfolded, it was discovered that the site had once hosted an ancient communal latrine—many different animals had used the same place over and over to urinate or defecate, including many large plant-eating animals.

Dung samples were collected from the site and sent to various places for study. One such sample wound up in Argentina's Regional Center for Scientific Research and Technology Transfer of La Rioja, which is where the researchers involved in this new study found it.

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Paleontologists identify closest-known ancestor to Tyrannosaurs

by University of Calgary
https://phys.org/news/2025-06-paleontol ... saurs.html

Paleontologists have identified a new species of dinosaur, Khankhuuluu, which is being described as the closest-known ancestor to the giant Tyrannosaurs.

The finding by an international team of researchers—led by Jared Voris and Dr. Darla Zelenitsky in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary—is published in the journal Nature.

Voris, first author and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth, Energy, and Environment, says the new species of Tyrannosaur would have lived 86 million years ago and was a medium-sized, fleet-footed predator that evolved after the extinction of other large predatory dinosaurs.
Khankhuuluu was the closest ancestor to the behemoths famously depicted in media like Jurassic Park, the Tyrannosaurs.

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How night lizards survived the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs

https://phys.org/news/2025-06-night-liz ... saurs.html

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Paraceratherium – the largest land mammal to have ever lived.

They were herbivores, and roamed across Eurasia during the Oligocene (34–23 million years ago).

Elephant and human to scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium

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Paraceratherium – the largest land mammal to have ever lived.

They were herbivores, and roamed across Eurasia during the Oligocene (34–23 million years ago).

Elephant and human to scale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium

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Potato Evolved from Tomato 9 Million Years Ago
July 31, 2025

Introduction:

(Eureklaert) An international research team has uncovered that natural interbreeding in the wild between tomato plants and potato-like species from South America about 9 million years ago gave rise to the modern-day potato.

In a study publishing in the Cell Press journal Cell, researchers suggest this ancient evolutionary event triggered the formation of the tuber, the enlarged underground structure that stores nutrients found in plants like potatoes, yams, and taros.

“Our findings show how a hybridization event between species can spark the evolution of new traits, allowing even more species to emerge,” says corresponding author Sanwen Huang of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China. “We’ve finally solved the mystery of where potatoes came from.”

As one of the world’s most important crops, the potato’s origin had long puzzled scientists. In appearance, modern potato plants are almost identical to three potato-like species from Chile called Etuberosum. But these plants do not carry tubers. Based on phylogenetic analysis, potato plants are more closely related to tomatoes.

To solve this contradiction, the research team analyzed 450 genomes from cultivated potatoes and 56 of the wild potato species.

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1092263

For a presentation of study results as published in Cell: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S00 ... 5)00736-6

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Fossil evidence reveals early primates evolved in cold climates, not tropical forests

https://phys.org/news/2025-08-fossil-ev ... mates.html

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Didn't know that there were giraffes in Inner Mongolia.

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Click to view full-sized image:

https://static.scientificamerican.com/s ... d_zoom.jpg

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'Punk rock' dinosaur with metre-long spikes discovered

27 August 2025, 16:08 BST

Scientists have discovered a bizarre armoured dinosaur which had metre-long spikes sticking out from its neck.

The species, called Spicomellus afer, lived 165 million years ago, and is the oldest example of a group of armoured dinosaurs called ankylosaurs.

The elaborateness and spikiness of the animal found in Morocco has come as a shock to experts, who now have to rethink how these armoured dinosaurs evolved.

Prof Richard Butler, from the University of Birmingham who co-led the research, told BBC News that it was the "punk rocker" of its time.

Punk rock is a sub-culture and music style that first emerged in the 1970s. It's followers often have spiky hair and accessories.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y2emnnn4po



Image credit: Matt Dempsey

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